April 2008 Meeting &

Plant of the Month Competition

Arizona - Part 1

We welcomed Graham Walker to the meeting who was speaking on a tour he made in Arizona. The talk would be in two parts. The second part being at the May meeting.

Arizona is the Grand Canyon state. His tour started in Phoenix, and was a round trip heading towards the State Monument. The first plant seen was a two foot (60 cm) Ferocactus in the copper mining area. He saw bats pollinating plants, a Cristate organ pipe cacti and a Opuntia in flower with lovely orange/yellow flowers. There were also lots of different Opuntias.

He also visited the largest astronomical station in the world and the desert museum, where there are fantastic skeletons of plants. The strength of the dead plant skeletons was notable; they use the "bones" of the plants as fence stakes. Also seen was the cardinal bird with lovely colours. He visited b-b nursery and then on to Tombstone, an old mining village with the OK Corral. He saw some old wall paintings on large rocks and then went on to the Petrified Forest, with lots of petrified logs.

The talk finished with a gorgeous Arizonian sunset. We all look forward to part two next month